Rohrabacher: ‘I’d Be Very Willing’ to Be Trump’s Secretary of State

AP30 Nov 2016Washington, DC

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), upon being asked about critics who have called him Russian President Vladimir Putin’s favorite Republican, told Breitbart News Daily SiriusXM host Raheem Kassam on Wednesday, “Putin is not a perfect guy at all, but he is not Joseph Stalin or even Nikita Khrushchev.” Rohrabacher made the point that communism, not Russia specifically, was seen as the greatest threat during the Reagan years, and it was, by and large, defeated.

As for talk of his being on the list to become President-elect Trump’s secretary of state, Rohrabacher said he would be content to remain in Congress; however, he believes Trump needs a secretary of state whose thinking aligns with his own, and Rohrabacher is not convinced the names being bandied about fit that bill.

“What I believe is that I’m excited about what Donald Trump stands for,” he said, “and how he’s going to take American policy and make it … aimed at not some globalist theory of making the whole world better, but, instead, based on something that’s going to be good for the security of the people of the United States and what’s going to be good for the prosperity of the United States.”

Rohrabacher added that it was “an exciting thing that finally, we’ve got somebody on our side” in the White House, in contrast to Barack Obama. “How else do I qualify?” said Rohrabacher of the secretary of state position. “I’ll just have to say that I believe in those things strongly, so I think that’s why I’ve been trying to suggest I’d be very willing to take that job.” He went on to detail his foreign policy experience dating back to even before his lengthy tenure in the Reagan White House up to the present day.

Rohrabacher defined radical Islam as perhaps the greatest global threat to America today and said America should not simply dismiss joining with Russia in fighting it when our interests intersect.

“Radical Islam is our threat today,” said Rohrabacher. “We have to prioritize, and a non-communist Russia has the same incentive for us to work together because it threatens Russia, and they’re killing Russians. Radical Islamists are killing Russians like they’re killing western Europeans and Americans. For me to suggest that we work with Russia to defeat this threat, I think it is rational.”

He said he’s “taken a lot of heat” for his stance regarding Russia, but he does not believe it’s “in the interests of the American people who are interested in peace to keep vilifying Russia as if it’s still the Soviet Union that threatens us.”